Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Unhinged

I enjoyed the opportunity to sort through my rusty photos for this month's challenge theme. There seem to be a lot of them! I decided to work with a number of photos and reduce them to their primary elements in black and white. I used a Sketch & Wash pencil. I love this pencil--you draw with it and then use water and a brush to soften the lines, so it's a kind of watercolor pencil. It seemed like a good way to represent the distressed and decayed lines of my rusty objects.

For my first sketchbook page, I printed some images onto paper (right) and then drew them with a Sketch & Wash pencil, using a brush and water to blend them a bit (left).

For my second page, I focused on some beautifully rusty hinges I came upon while on a photo jaunt. I love working in series, and there happened to be three, my favorite number! Although I worked in strict black and white for the first page, I wanted to revel in the warm rusts, browns and oranges of my second set of photos. First I sketched out the rectangles and placed the primary elements on the page.

Then I got out some water soluble crayons and selected all of the colors in the rusty range and began layering them with abandon.

A little water wash and my sketch was coming along nicely. The black was a little light for my taste, so, after trying a few pens, I opted to use a brush and some black acrylic ink to go back in and darken the blackest parts. You have to be resourceful when working with mixed media. When one media doesn't work, try another. Many don't play nice together. In my rock paper scissors unhinged page, the black ink won because it covered the previous layers. Most pens are not up to this challenge.

Finally, a splash of orange and brown ink from the end of my brush to add a little dash of fun! My loose interpretation of metal hinges; unhinged by nature.